A Visit Home

First I want to thank everyone for the birthday wishes! Time goes by so quickly and I love just looking back at the year and seeing all of the amazing things God has done and how He continues to move in my life, even though I don’t deserve a single part of it.

Life has been back to normal for the past few weeks since the Iowa team left. Their church it seems is interested in sponsoring us to buy a piece of land in the area near Santa Catarina Barahona. This is HUGE. If we could have a place as an office and meeting space there in town, as well as a place for teams and volunteers to be hosted, it would be an incredible blessing. We see God at midst in this and Bill, who is our third board member from that church, will be coming down to help look at piece of land and buildings to buy. Please pray about this!

I also will be coming home as sort of a “surprise” visit in a few weeks. I am mentioning this here because I am well aware that my Dad has mentioned it in church, for those of you who go to CUMC. I have some current health issues that need to be taken care of. It is nothing serious I don’t believe, but something that should at least be looked at. I will be buying a one-way ticket with every intention of coming back when I can! But as you know, Doctor appointments and matters regarding health don’t always go as planned. This way I don’t need to be worried about doing everything within a certain amount of time, knowing I have a date to come home. I thank you all for your support and prayers always, I look forward to seeing some of you very soon!

Iowa First Presbyterian Church Mission Team

It is 5:30 in the morning, and the Iowa Mission Team of 66 people just left a little while ago. I tried to fall back asleep but was not able to! It has certainly been quite a week, and as most mission trips go, went by very quickly.

They team came last Saturday and were already separated into 3 groups. Each group rotated two to three times during the week between Hope Haven (assembling wheelchairs and a distribution), ImagininGuate (constructing a house), and smallchangeforbigchange. With Lisa, they were installing stoves and with me we had a VBS of up to 100 children. The majority of the team was youth from the youth group and had never been out of the country before. It was certainly an eye opening experience for everyone to not only leave the US, but to see the way people live who are living in poverty. Most of them had the opportunity to go inside at least one family’s home and saw the seriousness of the way families are living here in Guatemala.

The team who built the house worked with an organization called ImagininGuate that I mentioned above. It is a team of 4 guys from the very same community want to make a difference and whose passion is house building. They start from essentially nothing, the ground, and construct a home in one week. This was also a wonderful chance for the group to start a project so big and see it finished at the end of their time here. Each day the groups were separated in yet more groups for lunches in the homes of our most special families. This gives the women a chance to not only work and cook traditional food for visitors but also relationships to be built and for the groups to have a chance to talk with them and hear their stories.

Lives were touched, both for the Guatemalan people here but also with the huge team from Iowa. Many tears were shed as it was time to say goodbye yesterday and promises were made to come back. God was at work this week; keeping everyone safe and moving in our hearts.

English Classes

I want to introduce you to Emilsa. She is another addition to the smallchangeforbigchange team! We have been able to hire someone to teach two more English classes in Santa Catarina Barahona. Not only is it an excellent opportunity for people to come study English for free in the community, but also for Emilsa to have work and be involved in something where she is practicing and using her English. The more we can find the opportunities to give people work, the more each of those people will be able to improve their lives and start changing their futures.

Emilsa has been studying English at Maximo Nivel (where we have our other 4 students) for a year now. She is beginning her second year and has a talent for the language. She has decided to plan all of her own lessons and activities using the structure and ways that she has learned herself. She has been a pleasure to work with and will be a part of this week with the team as a translator! I believe God puts specific people in our paths without coincidence and that is no exception with Emilsa and these English classes!